WYOMING, Mich. \u2014 At Caribbean Sunrise, Gadiel Col\u00f3n and his wife, AnaSue Jaramillo-Col\u00f3n, serve dishes including pernil, or roasted pork, sweet plantains and arroz con gandules.<\/p>\n
For Col\u00f3n, the path to owning a restaurant began as a teenager in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started this when I was 16 years old,\u201d he said. \u201cI used to sell shish kebabs, meat on a stick on the side of the road in Puerto Rico.\u201d<\/p>\n
He later began selling skewers and Puerto Rican rice in Holland before moving into a restaurant of his own.<\/p>\n
The couple initially wondered how their food would be received. Jaramillo-Col\u00f3n said Puerto Rican cuisine was less familiar to some customers than other Latin American food available locally.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey cannot get over the different flavors that they are experiencing with this type of cuisine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The menu also includes empanadillas, mofongo and a jibarito sandwich. Col\u00f3n said he takes pride in introducing customers to Puerto Rican cooking and seeing his longtime business goal become a reality.<\/p>\n
Watching that happen alongside his wife has been overwhelming, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, we’re grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Wyoming, Jos\u00e9 Bobadilla said Supermercado La Victoria grew out of a desire to help the Hispanic community find products for familiar meals.<\/p>\n
Bobadilla is from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and his wife is from Durango. Their business offers groceries along with freshly prepared food, including burritos, gorditas and carne asada quesadillas.<\/p>\n
While serving Hispanic customers was a priority, Bobadilla said people from many backgrounds visit the store.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to we try to like you say to share part of our culture with everybody here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The grocery aisles give customers ingredients to cook at home. The prepared food offers another way to experience Mexican flavors \u2014 whether they\u2019re familiar or something a customer is trying for the first time.<\/p>\n
For Bobadilla, the response goes beyond enjoying a meal. Seeing people embrace traditions from his country helps him feel accepted in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can we we can bring our traditions from from our country to to here to United States and and people love it people like it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n
Follow FOX 17: Facebook – Twitter – Instagram – YouTube<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WYOMING, Mich. \u2014 At Caribbean Sunrise, Gadiel Col\u00f3n and his wife, AnaSue Jaramillo-Col\u00f3n, serve dishes including pernil, or roasted pork, sweet plantains and arroz con gandules. For Col\u00f3n, the path to owning a restaurant began as a teenager in Puerto Rico. \u201cI started this when I was 16 years old,\u201d he said. \u201cI used to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[38251,17856,17857,15427,18280,1403,3085,3083,3086,3084,38252,6720],"class_list":["post-50635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-michigan","tag-caribbean-sunrise","tag-fox-17","tag-fox-17-news","tag-kent","tag-kent-county","tag-michigan","tag-michigan-dining","tag-michigan-food","tag-michigan-grocery-stores","tag-michigan-restaurants","tag-supermercado-la-victoria","tag-wyoming"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117430612355083022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}